Never with you: Delhi Police's poor record of fighting crime against women makes the gang-rape case a vital test

The brutal gang-rape of the 23-year-old student paramedic in a contract carriage bus on Sunday night has put a question mark over the quality of policing in the country's rape capital, Delhi.

Like always, the inert and insensitive Delhi Police officials woke up to offer post-crime quick-fix solutions following public outrage and the consequent political pressure.

The horrendous crime may have temporarily jolted the cops into action, but for all one knows they will go back to their callous ways sooner rather than later.

Students demonstrating against the recent gang rape near chief minster Sheila Dikshit's residence

Police use water cannons to disperse the students who were demonstrating against the recent gang rape case, at Delhi Chief Minister's residence in New Delhi

For Delhi Police, promises are meant to be broken. It is their past record in inefficiency which prompted a Delhi High Court bench of Chief Justice D. Murugesan and Justice Rajiv Sahai Endlaw to remark, "Nobody is safe, it's repeatedly seen in Delhi.It is not one odd incident."

The bench further told the Delhi government's counsel, "There are two important questions.

The first is the investigation in the case and the second is the preventive measures. We want to know what measures have been taken by the police to prevent such incidents."

The Delhi Police commissioner as well as joint commissioner of traffic police's claim that there was no commotion during the 45-minute horrific drive on Sunday night that could have alerted the police in the Vasant Vihar area, only lends strength to the popular belief that the police rarely wants to be proactive.

This concern is shared by former Delhi Police commissioner Ajay Raj Sharma, who believes that policing has only deteriorated by every passing day and the fear of law and the police has also disappeared.

Policing problem

"Grassroots policing should be improved in the capital. Besides, police should crackdown on small time habitual criminals including eve teasers and stalkers, who later on graduate to murderers or rapists," Sharma told Mail Today.

The figures of 582 rapes this year, as opposed to 480 cases reported last year, only substantiates the perception of Delhi being the most unsafe city for women.

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That the accused were out on a 'joyride' proves that they had no fear of being caught and they dared to commit the rape after robbing a carpenter.

Besides, the three PCR vans with nine police personnel could not smell any foul play even when the bus in which the victim was being raped took several U-turns around the same road.

"Presence of police personnel on roads has to be increased and they should be visible in every nook and corner to scare away the anti-social elements," he added.

This incident has only refreshed painful memories of worst rape cases Delhi has witnessed in the past decade and exposed the hollowness of the promises the police made after every incident.

In 2001, a 26-year-old woman was gangraped by four men in a moving Blueline bus which she boarded from Mathura Road in south Delhi. The men threw her out of the moving bus after raping her.

The incident enraged residents of the capital and the police, as usual, reacted by cracking down on buses and promising night patrolling.

Eleven years later, Sunday's rape was no different from the one on Mathura road.

Efficient night patrolling, as promised, by an alert police could have saved the girl from being brutalised.

The police claims fell flat again on November 15, 2002, when a fourth-year student of the Maulana Azad Medical College was raped by three people on knifepoint on the terrace of the Khooni Darwaza monument on the busy Bahadurshah Zafar Marg in broad daylight.

Shockingly, the crime took place less than a kilometer away from the police headquarters.

A fast track court was then set up to try the accused in this particular case. Once the judgment was out, the court was wound up.

It has taken the government exactly 10 years to set up five fast track courts to try rape cases.

Unsolved case

In 2003, a Swiss diplomat was abducted and raped in her own car from the Siri Fort complex parking lot by two men.

She was beaten up, robbed and then dumped along with the vehicle a few kilometres away.

In a knee-jerk reaction the police started a campaign, issuing orders that all parking lots should be well lit.

Once again, they promised to improve night patrolling. The issue attracted international attention because of which the reaction lasted for some months.

The case has remained unsolved and with culprits still at large can Delhi be ever safe for women at night?

Then the capital witnessed another gruesome incident in 2005 in Dhaula Kuan where a Delhi University student was raped in a moving car by four men.

She was abducted while walking towards home after buying food from a roadside eatery along with a friend.

A lip service from the police followed. This time they emphasized the need to further improve the night patrolling and also increase barricading in crime prone secluded areas.

Crime capital

The same year, a four-month pregnant woman was abducted in a white car, off the main road, a few hundred metres from the Mayapuri police station, by three unidentified abductors who gagged her before taking turns to rape her.

Delhi Police repeated its prescription which in reality amounted to going back to their sluggish ways.

As a result, in 2010 a 30-year-old BPO employee from Manipur was dragged by four drunken men near Dhaula Kuan and gang-raped for over 40 minutes in a moving vehicle.

The Police parroted the night patrolling promises yet one more time and issued notices to all BPO companies to safeguard women workers under Criminal Procedure Code (CRPC) 144.

Doctors weigh rare surgery

Doctors at Safdarjung Hospital in the Capital are exploring various medical options, including an intestinal transplant, to save the 23-year-old paramedical student who was gang-raped and assaulted in a moving bus on Sunday night.

The victim, who underwent a major surgery on Wednesday, continues to be critical.

The doctors said though her vital signs such as blood pressure, urine, pulse rate and respiratory rate were in the medically accepted range, she was still not out of danger.

They said they were mulling over an intestinal transplant for the girl as she had lost her intestines to injury and infection.

"Medical options are many but we can look at intestinal transplant. However, the first question is of her survival," said Dr B.D. Athani, medical superintendent of the hospital.

An intestinal transplant can be done after a donor donates his/her intestines.

Though intestine transplants are rare in India, the option is being explored in her case.

The case may also find a place in national and international medical journals owing to its 'rarity'.

The doctors said the victim was showing tremendous courage during the treatment.

On Wednesday, she cried before her brother and mother and told them that she wanted to live.

"We performed an elective abdominal exploration on her today for knowing the status of her injuries. The surgery took two hours and she withstood the surgery with high spirits," said Athani.

"A major portion of her intestines was found to be not viable because it was gangrenous, (so) we had to remove it," he said.

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Never with you: Delhi Police's poor record of fighting crime against women makes the gang-rape case a vital test